Page 73 of Antihero

“I need to go full cyberwarfare,” the girl said. “And there’s a next-level boot-and-nuke secure-eraser malware I need to access.”

Devine did not stir. Only his lips moved. “For what?”

“To wipe uploaded footage of a gang rape off the internet.”

The girl had put toughness into her voice to showcase resilience, but Devine could hear what it was covering. Horror.

They were fallen.

They were all so fallen.

When Devine blinked, he was surprised to see a wet spot on the pillowcase beneath his face.

“It’s behind about a dozen firewalls at NSA’s Tailored Access Operations,” the girl—Josephine?—said. “I can hack it but it’ll take time. I don’t have time. I need a shortcut. I need your help.”

A coldness fell upon Devine. An exhalation shuddered out of him like a shiver.

“I have an acquaintance at SIGINT at NSA,” Devine said. “A major general who visited here last fall and couldn’t help but bite a shiny, shiny apple.”

Rawlings said, “I know the one. May I call him under your authority?”

“You may indeed,” Devine said. “What time is it?”

“Time to rest,” the girl said.

Devine laughed. His whole body ached with the movement.

“That is,” he said, “one superpower I wish I had.”

30Last Man Standing

Anca was wiping the surfaces of her apartment with an obsessive energy that Evan knew all too well. She’d barely paused at his entrance, flurrying from coffee table to secretary desk, her spray bottle and worn rag sparing no speck or streak.

Candy sat on the plastic-covered sofa watching with an expression that took Evan a full five seconds to name, since he’d never seen it on her face: helplessness. Catching his eye, she arched her perfect brows, held her hands wide, palms flared upward.

“Anca,” Evan said, “I have to talk to you.”

“That’s fine.” Anca lifted the family pictures, wiping down the frames and thunking them back into place. “And I have to talk to both of you. You’ve been incredibly helpful and the dead bolts are changed now and I need to be strong. I have to be strong again, and independent.”

Evan eased farther inside. “I understand.”

Her laminated seizure plan rested on the couch beside Candy, its lanyard of yellow yarn puddled atop it. Candy tracked his gaze, mouthed: Two seizures today.

Evan said, again, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Which means,” Anca continued, her voice rising over his, “that I’ll need to learn how to stay alone in the apartment again. I start work again tomorrow—”

“Work?” Candy said. “Can’t you take some time off?”

“I’ve already used my vacation days.”

“How about sick days?”

“Them as well. Last summer I took a pilgrimage to see the frescoes at the Monastery of Suceviţa.”

Candy said, “I’m sure the church can give you a bit more—”

“My suffering does not earn me special favor.” Anca wiped down the top of the AC unit, showing tender attention to the Jesus postcard. Snapping the rag, she headed into the kitchen, her gait still strained from the damage inside her. “Besides,” she said, as Evan and Candy followed her in, “I can’t afford not to work. There’s rent and now a mess of medical bills and I still have my student loan to pay off from my year of college, twenty-seven thousand dollars compounding at five-point-five percent.”